Students to Oakland: "Disarm BART"

Oakland high school students plan protest at council meeting

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A group of Oakland high school students planned an evening press conference and protest at Oakland City Council Tuesday to make several demands of city government after the shooting death of Oscar Grant III.

A group of Oakland high school students held an evening press conference and protest at Oakland City Council Tuesday to make several demands of city government.

Organizers with the students and other community members said they planned to demand that the Oakland City Council pass a resolution to jail several of the police who were at the scene when ex-BART officer Johannes Mehserle shot and killed Oscar Grant III.

The students also said they will demand that the city council disarm the BART police, call on BART police to stay out of Oakland and convene an independent public hearing to investigate Grant's death.

"The youth of Oakland want all the cops who were accessories to murder to be arrested immediately," said Brenda Onofre, a student who is circulating the petition at Skyline High School. "If black or Latina/o teenagers had held down a man while he was shot and killed, and then tried to steal people's cell phones afterward to hide the evidence, they would be in jail right now and we all know it."

Mehserle and his family have received death threats since the New Year's Day shooting of Grant. Mehserle has been charged with murder and has pleaded not guilty.

He resigned from BART after the shooting.

On Monday a rally and march was held in Oakland to protest the shooting. It was the third rally and was scheduled in connection with the Martin Luther King holiday.